


on this road to the sky

by vaguelyfamiliar



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Coming Out, Crack Treated Seriously, Established Relationship, Implied/Referenced Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Oblivious Team, Schmoop, The Washington Capitals Are Stanley Cup Champions So Suck On That
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 17:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15778521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vaguelyfamiliar/pseuds/vaguelyfamiliar
Summary: Sasha isn't the only one who can't believe Nicke's with him.





	on this road to the sky

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is a prompt fill for this anon's great idea: https://thesinbin.dreamwidth.org/3790.html?thread=5079758#cmt5079758
> 
> It's unbeta'd because that's a great prompt that sat around for a few months, so I was overexcited to fill it! Hope the OP enjoys what I ended up with, even though it's probably way schmoopier and G-rated than it needed to be. Title is, shamefully, from Intro on Ariana Grande's second album.
> 
> This takes place during and after playoffs in 2018, but the timeline of 819 getting together is handwave-y. Sometime in the 2015-2016 season perhaps? You decide.

Sasha wakes up alone, as is almost never the case these days, but he’s not concerned. Nicke sleeps fitfully when he’s not playing, and Sasha assumes that he’s already out in the kitchen, pretending to eat breakfast but really just fretting. Game 6 in Pittsburgh is less than two days away, their flight is tomorrow, and Nicke’s hand is broken. Trotz has all but said that Nicke won’t be in the lineup for it.

Sasha rolls out of bed, scratches at his belly. It’s still early, but he could go for some food too. He ambles out into the kitchen, where Nicke is, of course, frowning down at an egg-white omelette. It’s misshapen and lumpy; Sasha imagines that it’s hard to cook when your index finger is out of commission. Injury isn’t a good look for anyone on Sasha’s team, but on Nicke it tugs at him even more.

Nicke has deep shadows under his eyes as well, and it’s probably not just the hand injury that’s getting to him. Sasha knows that he gets antsy whenever they come up against the Penguins in playoffs. He knows, because he’s been waking up next to Nicke for the last few years of it.

Sasha pulls the milk out of the fridge for his coffee, and then leans across the counter to brush his lips to Nicke’s hairline. “ _Доброе утро_ ,” he tells Nicke, and receives a baleful stare for his trouble. Nicke understands that Sasha said _good morning_ , he just probably doesn’t agree.

“You sleep bad?” Sasha asks him, already knowing the answer. He pours himself a mug of coffee and then pours one for Nicke too, doctors it up the way he likes.

“Yes, kept waking up,” Nicke confirms, sighing. “Eventually I figure we have to get to the flight in few hours anyway, so.”

Sasha shrugs, coming around to sit next to him. “Just mean I get morning kiss out here today,” he says before he leans forward to take it. He kisses Nicke in the faint morning light leaking in through their front windows, instead of under the covers in their bed. That they share, together. It’s been like that a couple years, but…Sasha still can’t believe it sometimes.

He pulls back and Nicke hums softly, eyes still closed. His broken hand is on the small of Sasha’s back, now.

“You know anyone could see us out here,” Nicke teases as his eyes blink open once more. It’s true; they’re in full view of the front porch through the bay window. If a teammate was stopping by for a random visit, as they often do, they’d get fully schooled on how Nicke’s mouth looks against Sasha’s. It’s fine, though, firstly because no one ever stops by Sasha's house this early, and secondly because they probably wouldn’t believe it even if they saw it.

His mood dampens at the thought. He’s not the only one who can’t believe Nicke’s with him.

The thing is, Sasha has _tried_. Nicke gave him the go-ahead and Sasha started telling people as soon as he had it. It was Willy first; Sasha had pulled him aside after morning skate, taken him out to that awful sandwich place he loves so inexplicably. He’d sweat profusely and gathered his nerve and braced himself for impact and opened his mouth and blurted, “Me and Nicke, we together.”

Willy had hardly batted an eye. “Well, not right now, you’re not. He went home!”

Sasha had taken a moment to be dumbfounded, then collected himself and tried again. “Not what I mean. What I mean, it’s like, I love him.”

Willy had chuckled at that, and said, “I got that, bro. Everyone knows it’s You and Backy Forever, Hockey Soulmates for Life, Playing on Different Lines Could Never Tear You Apart. You love him! He’s like, your _best_ bro.” He paused for a moment, and when he spoke again, his tone was bitter and sharp. “I had one of those, once.”

Sasha tried not to roll his eyes. “Latts still call you every day.” He decided to give it up for the moment. It’s just that Willy is an idiot, and Sasha had to choose someone else.

So he’d chosen Osh, next, and done it without much fanfare. “I’m dating Backy,” Sasha’d stated bluntly as they strode up to the charter plane, headed to Texas.

But Osh had just laughed heartily and elbowed him. “That’s a good one, man,” he said, and they’d boarded without saying anything else about it.

And then a month later, he was in the dressing room changing for a meeting with Trotz, a captain thing. He, Nicke, and Carly were the only ones left, Nicke headed out and Carly just being slow. Nicke had come up to him, bag slung over his shoulder, and asked, “Can I have your house key? Left mine at home.” So Sasha had dug it out from his bag, handed it to him. And then Nicke had ducked in to press a kiss to Sasha’s cheek, and departed.

It had given Carly pause, for sure. He was in the stall next to Sasha’s, a front-row seat. “He doesn’t have the key to his house, so he’s gonna hang out at yours instead?”

“No, it’s same house,” Sasha let him know, because maybe this time would be the ticket. “Nicke’s my boyfriend for long time now.”

Carly had shrugged in response. “Hey, that’s almost believable.” Sasha resisted the temptation to drop his head into his hands. Carly shifted awkwardly and cleared his throat. “I mean, have you ever thought about it? I know he’s male and everything, but you guys could be good together.”

So basically, Sasha has _really tried_. There’s been little to no success in making his big gay reveal. Which is actually seriously vexing when Sasha thinks about it too long, because Sasha is _Russian_ , this shit is hard for him. He had to fight through practically decades of denial and self-loathing and confusion to get to Nicke, to get to a point where what they have now was even a possibility Sasha could accept that he wanted.

But in the here and now, it’s all okay, seeing as he has Nicke right beside him in their house, sleepy and soft in the dawn. He’s darling like this, despite the playoff weariness. The point of his nose and the green of his eyes are still so youthful, but the solidity of his shoulders and the red in his hair speak to his age. Sasha remembers the tow-headed, chubby-cheeked teenager he’d called to the draft stage in 2006. Nicke these days looks like the same person, but worlds away. Settled, confident. Mature. And today specifically, he’s turning into Sasha’s arms for comfort, so trusting and sure that Sasha will hold him well.

Sasha will. He promised himself he would from the moment Nicke stepped to him with new intent, with a question in his eyes like _are you ready?_ He decided that if he was going to risk parents crying and friends turning their backs and his country never understanding and countless other complications in order to love Nicke, then he’d do it with all of him.

And he knows what kind of people his teammates are. They _will_ hear about it, even if Sasha has to die on that hill.

 

\---

 

Sasha goes to change just before they leave for the flight. He puts a specific tee shirt on very pointedly, carefully considered, but he hides the back of it under a jacket before he goes to join Nicke at the door. It just looks like a regular Caps shirt with his back covered.

He tries not to smirk too hard on the plane when he finally takes the jacket off, standing up in the aisle and taking an unnecessarily long time to peel it off and stow it. Nicke notices first, because Nicke probably was looking at Sasha regardless. Sasha throws him a smug glance, and Nicke mirrors it back at him, shaking his head fondly. Sasha knows Nicke enjoys seeing his own name spread across Sasha’s back, because Sasha sleeps in his shirts sometimes and it almost always eventually results in either satisfying sex or satisfying cuddles. He feels the same when Nicke wears the 8 for him.

But that’s always been in the privacy of their own home. Sasha flaunting it like this? Well, it gets some attention, just as it’s designed to.

“Yo, wrong shirt today, Ovi?” Devo calls from a few rows back. _Точно правильная футболка_ , he thinks but doesn’t say. _Exactly the right shirt._

“I think you guys got your laundry mixed-up somehow,” Carly says evenly.

“Yeah, you must have accidentally taken Nicke’s shirt at some point,” Burky pitches in, popping up from his seat next to the man himself.

Nicke wastes no time rolling his eyes at that, and goes, “Oh, he _must_ have. _MUST have_!” And then Nicke and Burky are wrestling again. Sasha doesn’t know how the Swedes on the team don’t sustain more sprains than they do, what with all the wrestling they do at random moments in inconvenient spaces.

Sasha leaves them to it. If wearing the number 19 on his back doesn’t send the message loud and clear, then Sasha will have to keep working to think of something that does.

 

\---

 

It takes blood, sweat, and tears, but they knock the Penguins out. Finally, they do what’s been done to them too many times over. Sasha thinks pulling Nicke into his arms after that victory rates among the best moments of his life.

If they keep going, though, if they could win it all...

Beating Pittsburgh is a treasure, but well, there’s always room for improvement.

Having returned home for a few days to prepare to face the Lightning, Sasha’s in such a good mood that he resolves to do a little decorating. He can’t wait to see the looks on the guys’ faces when they see the sick photo collage of him and Nicke he has up on the interior of his stall. The moment they finally put it together looms, and Sasha's excited for it.

But Kuzya just pokes at a photo of Sasha and Nicke at a wedding last year and asks in Russian, “Hey, was this Ted’s son’s wedding? I still can’t believe I wasn’t invited.”

And then Dima appears too, staring at a picture from the lockout when Nicke had played in Moscow with Sasha, before anything had even changed between them. “Oh, _legends_ ,” he says. Sasha’s baby Russians are ridiculous.

And when Osh joins them, he’s the first to point out idly, “Woah, you have like a hundred pictures of just you and Backy up here,” like maybe that could mean something. Sasha sucks in a breath, waits for Osh to say it. Instead, he continues, “What bet did you lose?”

Sasha can’t believe that none of his teammates get it. He keeps making it so clear, and they keep _laughing it off_ , this is homophobic, he’s telling the front office on them.

Nicke gets a kick out of it, at least. “I bet him he could not go all of playoffs without watching his own highlights on YouTube. He already lost,” he says dryly from the back of the small audience gathered around Sasha’s collage.

Sasha tosses him a withering glare. That’s completely fabricated. A likely story, but fabricated nonetheless.

The team buys it, though, laughing and chirping. Sasha thinks Nicke likely gets just as much satisfaction out of pulling one over on them as he would if everyone got a clue, so Sasha will let it be. He has a championship to focus on right now, and so does Nicke. And when they win the whole fucking thing together, Sasha will have more photos to put up, and some even better memories.

 

\---

 

So Sasha keeps letting it be, through holding Nicke’s hand on the bus in Tampa Bay, through rubbing Nicke’s sore back in the Las Vegas visitors’ dressing room, through winning the Stanley Fucking Cup and being unwilling to leave Nicke’s side for any of it. The world is watching, and honestly, Sasha doesn’t know how anybody could miss it, his affection for Nicke so obvious.

“Keep holding,” Nicke tells him when Sasha passes him the Cup. “Keep holding on.”

 

\---

 

They bring the Cup home, and they stay blasted drunk for days on end. He has Nicke next to him when they touch down back in Washington, when they ride a double-decker bus downtown above a sea of infinite red jerseys, when they spend a whole day in bed recovering from the best and most epic hangovers either of them has ever had.

He’s with Nicke for all of it. And though they’re seeing through their own haze of victory and alcohol, it’s impossible that not a single one of Sasha’s teammates understands what that means. He and Nicke are practically married.

Oh, there’s a thought.

It’s a thought that stays with Sasha, constant and nagging for weeks as the summer starts to roll by. The more he thinks about it, the more it sounds like a good idea. Sasha’s always wanted to get married, and he already plans on loving Nicke for the rest of his life, so.

It solidifies in his brain the night before Nicke leaves for Sweden, to take the Cup back home. He’d invited Sasha with him, but Sasha thought that Nicke should get to have that all to himself, with his family and old friends who’ve known him since he was in diapers. In bed that night, he rolls closer to Sasha, brings their foreheads together. “You’d belong there too, you know,” he whispers. “You’re part of home, part of family.”

Sasha feels the same and always has, in some ways. It’s why he’d needed Nicke to come play with him in Russia. It’s why Nicke’s his center. It’s why Nicke wants him there on his day with the Cup.

The next time they win, Sasha won’t miss it.

 

\---

 

He proposes after skate at Kettler in late September, when everyone’s together again for the preseason. There’s nothing special about the day or the location except for that Sasha has all his Caps around him and he can’t wait any longer.

When he moves to where Nicke’s sitting in the dressing room and drops to one knee in front of him, he thinks Nicke must be the only one who has any idea what’s about to happen, what with the way his mouth pops open. “Nicke,” he clears his throat. “This time last year, I promise we not gonna be fucking suck, and we gonna win Stanley Cup.”

The guys are all watching now, some with bemused expressions, some giggling at the reminder of what Sasha thinks is one of his best quotes to date. Sasha continues. “It’s huge goal for us, always big dream. I don’t know what gonna happen this year, if we gonna win or not, but now my dream for us even bigger.”

Sasha had been the one to reach for Nicke’s hand, but now Nicke is gripping his so tight that his fingers might crumble. Sasha knows what the answer is going to be before he asks, “Marry me?”

That’s greeted with an uproar from the team. Sasha doesn’t even care to listen, doesn’t care that some of them are clapping and some are laughing, or that Willy is yelling, “Wow, Ovi, your commitment to the _bit_!”

They’re all silenced anyway when Nicke answers, “Yes!” through his smile, and then takes Sasha’s face in hand to kiss him.

That probably pulls everyone up short. It takes Sasha awhile to even process seeing as Nicke is kissing him, Nicke is _marrying_ him. When they pull back from each other, the _huhwut_ attitude in the air is palpable. And as awkward as it is, _that’s_ what Sasha was looking for: the gratification of having shocked a whole room full of people because they finally comprehend what they’re looking at.

“Um, you guys should know,” Nicke addresses them at last, “that we’ve been together for a couple years.”

There’s some shuffling as everyone takes a moment to digest that. “...Oh,” Nisky blinks.

“Oh!” Osh repeats after him. “Well, why didn’t you just say so before? Holy fuck, congratulations guys!”

That _motherfucker_ , of course they only believe it when Nicke says it. The Washington Capitals are a team of bona fide idiots other than Nicke and maybe also Holts, who proclaims seriously, “I’d just like to state for the record that I knew the whole time.” But from there it’s all cheering and hugs, or at least sincere backpats. It’s more _celebration_ , which is exactly what Sasha loves about hockey, about team.

He beams up at Nicke. They have so much to be happy about.

**Author's Note:**

> I do speak Russian, but not fluently, so let me know if you have a translation correction!
> 
> I don't remember the exact words Backy said to Ovi to tell him to keep holding the Cup with him during his skate with it, nor can I find the video now, but that is actually real in some form.
> 
> Apparently Kettler Capitals Iceplex is now Medstar Capitals Iceplex as of a few weeks ago. Poo. Maybe at some point I'll come back and edit this fic to say Medstar rather than Kettler, since the proposal theoretically takes place after the name change.
> 
> Thanks for reading! This has been the first work I've ever written for Hockey RPF, so let me know how it went! You can find me on tumblr as [quickxotic](https://quickxotic.tumblr.com/), an account that's about 0.2 seconds old and is still under construction.


End file.
